Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Interview with McCombs

The last comment McCombs made during his interview, “Most journalists are messenger-producers, they are not communicators”, was a real eye opener. I never thought of journalists in that way but once you think about it, it’s true. McCombs made several comments that I feel need to be mentioned. The agenda-setting function of the media had a catchy phrase, “the media don’t tell us what to think but they do tell us what to think about”. The first part of this phrase no longer holds true. There is now a second level to the agenda-setting function. The second level consists of what are the pictures because our attitude and opinion come from that picture. This is really important because the premise is that the media can influence how we think and sometimes what we do.

1 comment:

COMM Aficionado said...

I also agree with you that McCombs comment has truth to it. Journalists have that motto of delivering the truth, fair, balanced and unbiased (or something like that). Therefore they can't communicate their own thoughts or opinions, and just produce messages. I don't think the media blatantly tries to tell us what to think, but in a sense they do. The "sides" of a story they choose to portray in the media can easily influence us, the audience, to see things a certain way according to their agenda. It's sad, but very hard to escape the "brainwashing" of media when it floods our daily lives.